Job 5:26-27. Job's friends are trying to comfort Job in his misery and loss. Unfortunately, two of them do so by giving Job a long lecture on how he should turn to the Lord and follow his ways (which we all should, but which Job was already doing anyway)! These verses are part of Job's friend Eliphaz's speech. Here he says to Job that if you follow the Lord "You shall come to your grave in ripe old age ... this we have searched out; it is true. Hear, and know it for your own good."

Argh! This has been happening to me a lot lately. These very well-meaning people, who I know love me, see my suffering and try to help by giving me what amounts to a lecture - telling me all the things I should do differently, or assuming I am doing something wrong and need to be made aware of what it is. It is absolutely such an annoying, frustrating, and painful thing to do to a person when they are suffering! I will say, though, that there is one good thing that has come from it. I now recognize that I have done this same thing, a lot, in the past. I never realized how much pain I was causing people by giving them what I thought was good advice and guidance. It truly is not until you experience something for yourself that you see how you have hurt other people (I read a book one time - I think it may have been Anne Rice - where that was hell - people doing to you all the hurtful things you did to others).

I look back now and I so wish that I could go back and just shut up and listen (or, if the person does not want to talk, just sit with them, as Job's friends do at first). What a jerk I was! It is astounding to me that I didn't see it at the time! It's funny, I have talked in confession lately about this feeling that I have wronged people by not truly listening to them, but it wasn't until I got this reading today that I really realized exactly what I have been doing wrong. I was acting like Job's friends! I have been so hurtful. Ugh!

The lines I got today about being assured of a long life and a happy death if you are faithful seem like comfort, and they seem like they should be true, but they are not. We can be very faithful, following God and still die too soon, or in a horrible way, or both. Just look at Jesus! In fact, the more we are "in the fight," the more likely it is that we will suffer consequences for being faithful, especially if the age in which we are living is one where the truth is being denied.

We live in such an age today; the spiritual battle is raging all around us and is sucking us all into it. We must choose our side and fight, remaining on the sidelines is no longer an option for most people. The battle will bring wounds, and maybe even death for some - it really does seem like religious persecution is coming our way sooner rather than later - but there are much worse things. We cannot let the devil blind us to the danger with false comfort like the words of Job's friends.

God does not promise comfort and ease in this life to those who follow him, but he does promise eternal joy in the next. That is definitely worth fighting, and even dying, for.